For local farmers, crop variety is key

Sunday

May 5, 2013 at 2:00 AM

James Walsh

There was a time when sod was king at the Pine Island Turf Nursery. Orange County was the fastest-growing county in the state, and development drove demand for instant lawns. Construction, though, hasn't recovered much since it began slowing around 2006.

“When housing is slow, it takes the bread and butter out of our business,” said Chip Lain, owner of Pine Island Turf Nursery and former president of Turf Grass Growers International, a trade organization.

Farmers face myriad challenges, from increasingly ferocious and unpredictable storms to a shortage of labor spurred by the immigration conundrum. And there are always concerns about the payback from investments in equipment and labor. Will today's high soybean prices hold through the next growing season? Opinions, one way or another, make farming a gamble.

More farmers have diversified crops in response to weather and market conditions. They cut back on one while tilling more fields for another. Some have reduced or even eliminated plantings rather than risk having too few hands at harvest time.

Lain and his Pine Island neighbors won't soon forget the flooding in the wake of Hurricane Irene two years ago. Much of the Black Dirt, an economic engine for agribusiness, was turned into a lake when the Wallkill River overflowed its banks.

“That's the one that all future floods will be gauged by,” Lain said as he steered his pickup between fields of sod. “We were underwater here for a month.”

Apple growers look this year to rebound from the effects of 2012's weird weather. An unseasonably warm March prompted the earliest start of a growing season in more than 40 years. A frost then felled many of the early blooms a month later, dashing dreams of a record crop. Harvests at some Ulster orchards were nearly halved. The state's apple crop, usually the second-largest in the nation, plunged more than 50 percent from the five-year average.

A harvest's impact can be felt far from the field. Agriculture remains a key component of the region's economy, regardless of encroaching suburbia, with its malls and housing subdivisions.

Agriculture in Orange County was a $73 million industry in 2007, the most recent figure available from state and federal agencies based on a census by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A new census is underway.

Sullivan County ranks among the state's biggest egg and poultry producers, and Ulster scores near the top in fruit, tree nuts and berries. The 2007 market value of Ulster's crops topped $65 million, and Sullivan's exceeded $42 million, according to the 2007 census.

Those figures fall far short of what some observers estimate to be today's numbers.Orange County's industry tops $100 million, “if you include all of the packaging and processing activities,” according to Maire Ullrich, agriculture program leader for Cornell Cooperative Extension.

The Lain farm boasts a shiny symbol of change – a new, metal grain storage bin that holds 20,000 bushels of soybeans. It cost about $75,000.

“That really saved us,” said Lain's wife, Shari. “(Superstorm) Sandy closed all of the ports and there was nowhere else for the soybeans to go.”

Soybeans represent a big chunk of Lain's future. This year's planting will consume nearly as much acreage as sod.

“More farmers are growing more crops,” Ullrich said in her Middletown office. “Fewer farmers are growing only one crop. I can think of only four farms growing only onions. That's a big change over the past 20 years.”

Produce farmer Paul Ruszkiewicz, a neighbor of Lain's in Pine Island, has shifted acreage from onions to soybeans and corn. Onions will consume 90 acres this year, down from 120 last year.Raising multiple crops can compensate for the ups and downs of the marketplace. It can also stagger harvests across the calendar, so a single storm might not prove as devastating.

Paul Ruszkiewicz has expanded from onions into soybeans and corn at his Pine Island farm. Fewer local farmers are growing just one crop. Photo:TOM BUSHEY/Times Herald-Record

“Diversification of crops is the easiest way to create your own safety net,” said Ford Barber of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency office in Middletown.

A shortage of skilled labor troubles farmers these days.The issue comes up in conversations on Pine Island's Mission Land Road, an arrow-straight passage to the horizon slicing fields nearly a half-mile long. John Ruszkiewicz plows one of those fields as his son, Paul, plants onion seeds on an adjacent plot. More hands will be needed later in the season.

“Last year, I had a terrible time trying to find help,” Paul Ruszkiewicz recalled. “I lost squash to the frost, because I couldn't harvest it.”

The ranks of migrant workers has thinned, he said, “because the people are afraid to travel. They're not moving around as much as they used to. Some went home, and it's not as easy to get back as it used to be.”

Farmers' dissatisfaction with government red tape propelled a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,to sponsor legislation in April to streamline the guest worker employment process. The bill would also provide contract-based visas enabling workers to remain year-round.

That's important for dairy farmers who've been stymied by short “seasonal” visa requirements.Schumer said year-round employment can help dairy farms keep up with an increasing demand for Greek yogurt production in the state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office announced last month that New York processors churned out 692 million pounds of all types of yogurt in 2012, making New York the nation's biggest producer.

The agricultural community includes more than the region's traditional produce, dairy and horse farms. Ginseng, heirloom pork and tomatoes, and grass-fed beef are among the products feeding locavore (local food consumption), health and preservationist movements.“Niche farming is becoming very, very popular. That's a growing trend,” said Barber of the Farm Service Agency. “Artisan, craft commodities are popular in the Hudson Valley. There's a great market just south of us, and agritourism is pretty strong in this area.”

The pioneers include Richard and Amanda Coleman, Jersey City, N.J., transplants who grow hops on a Westtown acre with the help of a neighbor, Walter Doty. Their first harvest last year – 22 pounds – was just enough to satisfy the home-brewing needs of Richard Coleman, who works full time as a food-service broker.

Far from discouraged, he spoke of putting 400 more plants into the ground this year. Hops grow taller and produce more as they mature, so the dream of a full-time commercial operation remains alive. “A fully yielding acre will give you 1,200 to 1,500 pounds,” Coleman said.

Last year's dry spell early in the growing season challenged the fledgling farmer. “We didn't have our well dug,” Coleman recalled, “and so I was running out 400 feet of hose from the house and watering plant by plant. This year, we'll have our drip irrigation system in. The Colemans have invested about $15,000 in their venture. “One of the most expensive things were the locust poles,” Coleman says of the five-dozen, 22-foot-tall poles that support the vines. Coleman is planning a berry patch as well as an orchard of apple and pear trees.

The fruit will flavor brews he wants to sell from a planned tasting room. State legislation allowing on-farm tastings of beer and liquor passed last year. Coleman's waiting for his license.

Local farmers have honed marketing skills, in some cases becoming retailers as they compete in a global marketplace. Supermarkets stock apples from New Zealand, lamb from Australia and tomatoes from Mexico.

In response, some Hudson Valley growers tailor their production to demands of upscale restaurants. They truck their produce to open-air markets in New York City parks and erect stands at dozens of farmers markets closer to home.

Many farms have embraced Community Supported Agriculture, in which consumers buy shares of harvests. That gives farmers planting-season capital, as well as a market for their crops.

“It's been slow growth, picking up as visitors realized it's a cultural experience,” Susan Hawvermale, Orange County's tourism director, said of the farmers markets. “More farms now sell retail than ever before, and they've become more sophisticated in their marketing. That's helped us sell them.”